Joy
Lynn White has been hailed as “the greatest unknown goddess of country
music” by Gavin, the radio trade magazine. But if the truth be told,
she’s
actually far more than just a country artist, if also hardly unknown.

Referring
to herself with a laugh as “a reformed country singer”, White is one of
those rare American music talents who is the real deal: a roots music
singer
and songwriter with heart, smarts, and hard-won wisdom and integrity.

Since
scoring a #1 Americana album with her most recent release, 1997’s “The
Lucky Few”, White has continued to expand her already substantial
musical
talents to three tracks on Essence, the new release by her friend
Lucinda
Williams, who White has also sung with in concert and opened shows for.

White
is currently a staff writer for Welk Music in Nashville, further honing
her burgeoning talents as a songwriter, both on her own and with such
cutting
edge Nashville co-writers as
Oscar nominee Gwil Owen, pop hitmaker Walter Egan, noted
producer/songwriter
Angelo, rocker Will Kimbrough, and roots music star Duane Jarvis, among
others.

White
has also augmented the esteem in which she is held Stateside with
recent
appearances in Europe, headlining the Vikedal Roots Festival in Norway,
touring Holland opening for Chip Taylor, and appearing with Buddy
Miller
at a Dutch Americana Music Festival.

Such
accomplishments are in addition to the trail White already blazed with
what Country Weekly calls two “brilliant albums” on Columbia Records –
1992’s “Between Midnight and Hindsight” (recently re-released on
Sony/Lucky
Dog Records) and 1994’s “Wild Love” – that helped set a number of
current
trends for female Nashville artists.

On
those records, she put together the now red-hot production team of
Blake
Chancey and Paul Worley, known for their multi-platinum success with
The
Dixie Chicks, and co-wrote and selected all of the songs, two of which
were subsequently re-recorded by The Dixie Chicks, “Tonight the
Heartache’s
on Me” (a hit single for the Chicks) and “Cold Day in July”.

Born
in Arkansas, White started singing at five years old with the White
Family
Band, led by her late father, Gene White. Blessed with a voice that
displays
what USA Today calls “an emotional range beyond anything in mainstream
country [that’s] as unforgiving as a blowtorch,” she headed to
Nashville
in a beat-up old car with a mere $200 in her pocket after
graduating from high school in Mishawaka, Indiana, where she grew up.

She
quickly became one of Music City’s most in-demand demo singers
(alongside
such future stars as Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood) before winning a
record deal with Columbia.

Her
two Columbia albums won her critical acclaim, and featured such top
players
as Marty Stuart, the late Eddy Shaver and Mike Henderson as well as
background
vocals by the likes of Nanci Griffith, Hal Ketchum, Harry Stinson and
Pat
McLaughlin. As Pulse! later noted, “White attacked songs with a daring
abandon rarely heard these days within the polite circles of
Nashville,”
but radio wasn’t ready for a passion that can now be heard echoing
throughout
the charts in the releases of many female country acts that have
followed
in her wake.

Undaunted,
White helped launch the Americana movement with a bang on “The Lucky
Few”,
which she cut with Dwight Yoakam’s band and production team. Praised by
the Washington Post as “a disc that bridges the gap between the
alternative
country of Nanci Griffith and the mainstream sounds of Patty Loveless”,
it sparked rave reviews from Playboy, Country Music, Stereo Review,
Pulse!,
Country Weekly and other publications as one of the year’s best
releases.
The album featured songs by Lucinda Williams, Jim Lauderdale (who calls
White “a songs best friend”) and country chart-topper Kostas, as well
as
more of White’s own budding songwriting talent.

As
veteran country music critic Alanna Nash noted in Stereo Review, “In
Jim
Lauderdale’s “It’s
Better This Way”, she even bests duet partner Dwight Yoakam, and in
“Try
Not To Be So Lonely”, she matches him in emulating Bakersfield
authenticity”.

As
she prepares to make her next and sure to be best-yet album, White has
continued to lend her distinctive vocal presence to records by numerous
other artists. In addition to her recent work with Williams, she can be
heard on releases by Yoakam, The Mavericks, Iris DeMent, Buddy Miller,
Kim Richey, Lee Roy Parnell, Robbie Fulks, Marty Brown, Bob Woodruff,
Jamie
O’Hara, and the Backsliders.

“True
talent has a way of lasting”, says Modern Screen’s Country Music of
White.
So even if widespread success has as yet eluded her, mostly because
White
continues to stay a few steps ahead of the pack, the artist Stereo
Review
dubs the “fiery redhead with a wild-and-wounded delivery and an
attitude
that says she is not to be ignored” continues to make music that cannot
be denied.

“Joy
Lynn White will enjoy the satisfaction of achieving success on her own
terms, which is the ultimate artistic triumph”.

Many of Joy
Lynn
White songs are published bySONGS OF WELK
and J.T. FOREVER MUSIC